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cheetah

Saw my first Gila monster last week--hopefully, the first of many. Saw desert tortoises and a rattlesnake, too.

I spent most of my week removing bufflegrass. It's an invasive species from Africa that grows very well in the Sonoran Desert--unfortunately, it chokes out native plants and catches fire easily. Fire isn't common in the desert, so the blazes that can sweep through an area infested with bufflegrass can turn it into a bufflegrass monoculture. It's everywhere. While they've
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I've never actually seen ocotillo with their leaves before. It's an interesting sight--from a distance they remind me of green pipe cleaners. Whenever I've visited the Southwest, it's invariably been winter; it might still be warm in Tucson at that time of year but the effects of the monsoon are clearly long gone. Despite the fact that it happens during the summer months, I'm sad I won't be around to see it. It's been a long time since I heard the sound of thunder during a good strong lightning
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In many respects, I think I was better off two years ago than I am today. Academics and General Life Skills are the obvious exceptions; two years ago I was still an architecture major and barely knew how live by myself.

That being said, it often feels like in terms of my social circles, things have only gotten worse. In part that's because, for some reason, I've grown less social among my peers over the past few years. That isn't only online. Offline too, I've had a harder time
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